News

Welcome to the Jungle

​Airmen and soldiers learn how to set animal traps and snares during the Jungle Training Operations Course June 17, 2016, at Andersen AFB, Guam. Air Force photo by SrA. Joshua Smoot.

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​Under the aggressive guidance of instructors from the Army’s 25th Infantry Division’s Jungle Operations Training Center, Air Force engineers and security and communications specialists endured a week of punishing but valuable training in how to survive and fight in the unforgiving jungle environment. Airmen from the 36th and 736th Security Forces Squadrons, 554th RED HORSE Squadron and 644th Combat Communications Squadron joined air and missile defense soldiers in seven days of intense training in the Jungle Training Operations Course at Andersen AFB, Guam. The training on Guam was proposed by MSgt. Jeremy Burkeen, 736th SFS operations superintendent, after he went through the Army’s jungle course in Hawaii. “This training is a lost art,” Burkeen said in a release. “With the push to the Pacific and the threats that lie in the Pacific Rim, we have to get back to the basics of airmanship and soldier skills.” The trainees learned how to navigate in the dense jungle, to trap and cook native animals, purify ground water, and to conduct combat operations, all while enduring sleep and food deprivation.